Nine New Malware Threats that Grabbed Attention in 2010

by Fahmida Y Rashid

Looking back at 2010, a significant number of alarming new threats emerged on the malware landscape, such as the merger of Spy Eye and Zeus Trojans, Koobface-variant Boonana targeting Macs and sophisticated botnets that collected financial data instead of just spewing out more spam. While some viruses stole millions of dollars and others caused untold amounts of damage and downtime as enterprises struggled to clean up the infection, there were also some that were just downright annoying. Some of these herald more variants looming on the horizon, such as Mac-malware, threats to specialized industrial equipment, and counterfeit software. Here is eWEEK's take on the list of unique and noteworthy viruses of 2010, with the help of the anti-virus experts at Panda Labs. While they may not have been the most widespread malware examples, the most sophisticated (although some were very novel) or the most damaging to computer systems, they were well beyond the run-of-the-mill threats that most of us encountered over the past year.